CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kyle
I was heading to meet with Cade and Blake. My Uncle Nate had promised to join us as soon as he was done checking with the trackers. Keri had stayed behind to manage her pack, and Scarlett was at home.
Cade felt it was too dangerous to have her around my pack at the moment. I understood his concern. I didn't want Crystal anywhere near any danger but I couldn't trust anyone to protect her like I would.
She was resting upstairs in our room. I asked Bay to keep an eye on her for me. It was also a way of keeping Bay busy and out of trouble.
A sense of urgency pushed me forward. We only had so much time before the Keepers showed up looking for their missing Keeper. For the two days it had taken for Crystal to go through her change, we had been lucky not to have any attacks. But it was only a matter of time before they did.
I knew Flynn discovering what Crystal really was would cause problems. But there was no point in wishing I could undo the damage. What was done was done. The only thing I could do going forward was deal with the problem.
There was no easy way. Each scenario I had planned out in my mind had severe repercussions, but we needed to decide which one gave us the better odds of surviving.
James was left to supervise things while I was busy. I was finding it difficult to leave Crystal. After all the time we had wasted, I wanted to just be able to spend time with her. I had decisions to make, though, that held the lives of my pack members in the balance.
Cade and Blake were already seated when I entered the study.
"How's Crystal?" Cade asked.
"Better." She was taking it easy and trying to recover. I sat down behind my desk.
"Any news on the Keepers?" I asked, looking at them expectantly.
Blake shook his head.
"Why don't we just give Flynn back and tell them it was a misunderstanding?" Blake suggested, like it was that simple, but of course it wasn't.
"We can't."
"Why not?" Cade asked.
"He knows what Crystal is. If we let him go, we will be signing her death warrant."
Understanding dawned in their features.
"We can't kill him either," Cade muttered, rubbing his chin.
I nodded in agreement. That would guarantee a backlash from the Keepers. And we had no way to make it a fair fight.
"Has Curtis made any progress?" I directed the question to Blake.
"Not yet. He needs a little more time."
That was one commodity we didn't have much of. If we didn't come up with something soon we were going to have to face the Keepers without a chance of defeating them. It would be a bloodbath. Just the thought of someone intentionally hurting my mate felt like claws sinking into my heart.
"Maybe there's a way to get him not to say anything about Crystal."
I shook my head. That would be the best plan if there was a chance it would work. Flynn could go back to the Keepers and Crystal would be safe.
Blake frowned.
"What?" I asked, hoping he had thought of something else that could work.
"He saved her from a rogue attack," he said, thinking as he spoke. "I bet we can get him to keep Crystal's secret."
I wasn't convinced. "He only did that because he thought she was human."
"What's the harm in trying?"
I studied him for a moment, contemplating his suggestion. My fingers tapped on the desk absentmindedly.
"I think it would be a waste of time." I folded my hands together. I could feel the noose tightening around my neck.
Cade shared a look with Blake. "I think it's worth a shot," he replied. It was two to one.
"Fine," I said, relenting.
"It might work better if Crystal is the one to talk to him, though." I frowned at Blake's suggestion. "I'm not saying she has to do it alone."
My look had conveyed my unwillingness to allow my currently weakened mate to face the deadly Keeper alone. There was no more time to waste. I stood up.
"I'll let you guys know once we're done," I told them before I left.
Just as I was about to go upstairs, Uncle Nate appeared.
"I thought we were having a meeting?"
"We've decided to try and talk to Flynn again. Cade and Blake think that we can use Crystal to appeal to Flynn's softer side."
"I'm not sure he has one." It looked like someone else was on the same page as I was. I shrugged, not wanting to have another round of discussions about it.
Crystal was up and out of bed when I entered the room. She stood quietly by the window, looking out over the property. I walked up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, and she leaned back.
"You're up," I noted, and she nodded.
"You feel like shifting yet?" I asked, but she didn't reply.
I could sense I had said something to upset her. I turned her around when her silence continued. She looked sad, and it tugged at me.
"It will be fine." I cupped her face and pressed a kiss to her soft lips.
Her hands covered mine. "What if I never want to shift?"
I shrugged. "You are the first half-werewolf, half-Keeper we know of. You're strong enough as you are so you don't really need to shift."
"Maybe," she said thoughtfully. Her hands rested on my chest.
"We need to go and see Flynn again."
"I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to see me again," she admitted, dropping her hands to her sides.
"We need to try," I told her, "because our only other alternative is to kill him."
"No." She stepped away from me. "You can't kill him."
I ran a hand through my hair, not liking the fact I had upset her. "If we can't get him to keep your secret, we won't have a choice."
"He rescued me," she said, lifting her shoulders slightly before allowing them to slump downward in defeat.
"You are the most important person in my life and I can't allow him to put you in jeopardy."
She bit her lip slightly before shaking her head. "You can't kill him. I won't have his death on my conscience."
I clenched my fist to keep my temper from flaring up.
"Your loyalty to him is misguided," I said, telling her the truth as I saw it.
"It doesn't matter," she replied, looking a little agitated.
I reached out to touch her hand with mine. It eased her emotions.
"I can't lose you," I said to her. I swallowed, not liking the tightened feeling around my heart.
"You won't," she assured me. "There has to be a way for this to unfold without everything crashing down around us."
I wanted to tell her everything would be fine but I didn't believe it.
"You ready to go and see Flynn?" I asked, needing to get this over with so I could go back to Cade and Blake and say 'I told you so.'
"Yes," she said.
All the way down to see Flynn I kept running scenarios through my mind, trying to come up with one we hadn't thought of, but there were none. My experience as an alpha told me the only way out of this was going to be a fight. My top priority was to ensure we had a fighting chance and to keep Crystal safe. Flynn was expendable.
Crystal paused for a moment before I opened the door to the cell. It was quiet as we entered. I stood beside her.
Flynn was seated on the bed, watching us. When his eyes met Crystal's, he stood up and walked to us. He was so close as his eyes scanned her features. Despite the intensity of his gaze, she didn't waver or show the nervousness I knew she was feeling.
Our connection allowed me to experience her emotions, especially when they were strong. Flynn scowled and glared at me.
"You did it?" he spat at me. "You have no idea what you've done."
"You're wrong," I told him, still refusing to believe him.
"You will reap the repercussion of your weakness."
My eyes narrowed. "I'm not weak."
"If I wasn't locked up, you would be dead already," he warned in a sinister tone.
I was an alpha of a pack, not some weak werewolf he could threaten. But before I had a chance, Crystal jumped against the bars between the Keeper and me.
"I will kill you," she yelled and, unbelievably, the steel bars she had her hands wrapped around began to move.
The acuteness of her raging emotions suffocated me. I took a breath to try and get my head around what I was witnessing.
"And when I've killed him, you will be next," Flynn added, crossing his arms as my mate continued to claw at the bars, trying to get at him.
I was shocked. I had never seen anything like it before. Flynn's eyes met mine smugly.
"This is what I warned you about."
Crystal
I was still shaking. I put a hand to my mouth when I remembered losing control. It had taken four male werewolves to pull me off the bars. Even now, two hours later, I still felt so angry. My loss of control had led to bent bars in the cell.
"I don't know what's wrong with me," I whispered, feeling emotional as I looked down to my hands. I had already been strong before but now my strength was at a whole other level. My eyes rose to catch my reflection in the window, but the person looking back wasn't me. This wasn't me.
"Don't," Kyle said. I felt the heat from his body behind mine.
I turned to face him.
"I lost all control. The only thing I wanted to do was rip his throat…" It shook me to my core. I had never experienced such a primal need, and no reasonable thought had been able to stop me.
I looked up at him. My eyes pleaded with him.
"I'm…scared," I mumbled, feeling my throat constrict with emotion.
He hugged me to him and soothed my hair from my face.
"I'm here," he assured me softly. "You don't need to be scared. I won't allow you to do anything you'll regret."
Believing his words would have been more than naive. The truth was I was physically stronger than him so there would be little he could do to ensure I didn't do something horrific.
Kyle stiffened and pulled away from me. I could tell he was talking to someone in the pack via the mind-link by his distracted look.
"James just told me that Curtis thinks he may know why you tried to attack Flynn." Had he found something in my blood work that could explain the loss of control? "James is on his way here with him now."
I began to pace as I waited for the next few minutes under the watchful eye of my mate, who stood a few feet away.
"Come in," Kyle said when there was a knock.
Curtis hurried in first, looking excited and holding some papers. James followed behind.
"What did you find?" Kyle asked, getting right to it.
Curtis walked to the nearby table and spread some of the papers he was holding on it.
I walked over to take a look but nothing I saw made any sense.
"I've taken two samples of blood from Crystal since she went through the change." Kyle nodded. "The hormonal activity in an average female werewolf is higher when they initially complete the mating process."
I frowned as I listened to him.
"Now, as we know, Crystal is not just a werewolf. Her blood work indicated her hormonal activity was reading four times the average of a female werewolf."
"So what does that mean?" Kyle asked, trying to figure out what he was trying to say.
"It means she is more emotionally unstable at the moment."
"Is it permanent?" If he was right and this was due to my hormones, I needed to know that there was an end in sight because I didn't want to live like this. Not being in control was not an option for me.
What if someone I cared for set me off the next time and there was no one to stop me? Was this the evil that Flynn had spoken of? That I would be a crazed hybrid with no control if I lost my temper?
"No," Curtis said, reassuring me. I could have kissed him in that moment. "It will take a few days but her hormonal level will settle and it will pass."
"See, I told you," Kyle said, giving me a kiss to my cheek as I beamed up at him.
"Thank you," I said to Curtis as I pulled my attention away from my mate.
"You're welcome," Curtis said with a rare smile.
"Tell them what else you may have discovered," James prompted, elbowing him.
Both Kyle and I gave him our attention.
"I still need to test it but I believe that the wolfsbane is a way for us to weaken the Keepers in combat."
One shot had been enough to incapacitate Harrison, but I wasn't sure how that could be implemented.
"But that wouldn't work in a fighting scenario. We'd need at least five to six werewolves to subdue them long enough to give them a shot of it," Kyle said, already dismissing it.
Curtis' grin widened. "I know a way but I have to test its effectiveness."
"I'm all ears," Kyle said. Was this the breakthrough that would even the playing field?
"We can use it as a spray. As long as we can get it close enough, it can be inhaled and it should work."
"Shouldn't it work quicker if it's inhaled?" I asked, and Curtis nodded. It was dangerous. Having to get close to the enemy wasn't going to be easy.
He would definitely need to test it first.
"Are you going to test it on Flynn?" I asked.
Curtis nodded. "Unfortunately, he is the only Keeper around."
"You could test it on me," I offered, but Kyle was already shaking his head. James didn't look convinced either.
"To know its effectiveness and the concentrate needed, I need to test it on the enemy—a Keeper. I have no way of knowing how much your werewolf side would affect it," Curtis explained.
Although it made sense, I wasn't sure how I felt about using Flynn as a guinea pig.
"So does this mean I have to be locked up until my hormones are normal?" I asked the doctor.
"No," he replied. "I believe a small dose of wolfsbane will keep you from losing control. I could have it ready in an hour. But you have to bear in mind that although it is a smaller dose it might still suppress your werewolf traits."
"Thank you," I said to him, feeling like he was handing me back my sanity.
"You don't have to thank me," he said, giving Kyle a side glance. "I'm doing this as a favor to someone to make things right."
"Tell her thank you," Kyle said tightly. He still wasn't completely ready to forgive Keri for her betrayal.
"Let me know when you're ready to start testing," Kyle instructed him before he left with James.
"Are you ever going to forgive her?" I asked him softly.
I could see the torment in his eyes. They had been so close. It had been hard, initially, watching from the background when he had first arrived in Keri's pack to keep an eye on her to make sure she stayed within the release criteria set by the surrounding pack's alpha. He had been her only friend when everyone else had turned their backs on her.
"Yes, but I'm not ready yet," he admitted, running a hand through his hair. It was weighing on him.
"Let it go," I told him. "Forgive her."
He held my gaze.
"I want to but every time I'm about to I think of how close I came to losing you. She knew how special you were to me and she kept it from me." He paused. "What if I lost you? What if another scenario had played out? What if it ended with you lost to me for this lifetime?"
"But none of that happened. I'm here and I'm safe. It's time to let it go. She needs you and you need her."
He frowned at me, his eyes heavy.
"You're tired," I said. "Why don't you get some sleep?"
He resisted.
"You need a clear and rested mind to make the best decisions," I lectured him. He was my mate and all I wanted to do was look after him the way he did with me.
"I have a few things I need to do and then I'll come up to rest."
He gave me a kiss that raised me onto tiptoes, lingering.
"I'll be back soon," he said.
As he got to the door, his hand reached for the door handle.
"What are you going to do about Flynn?" I asked. I needed to know if he still felt that going through with his initial plan of killing Flynn was the only option to keep me safe.
He stopped and looked at me over his shoulder.
"Sometimes we have to make the hardest decision to keep the ones we love safe," he said, looking somber, which left me with no doubt that he was going to kill Flynn to keep my secret from getting back to the other Keepers. "I'll carry the burden of my actions to keep you from harm."